This Book Will Change Your Perspective on Your Life!

The last Lecture of a man that introduces the elephant in the room

I’ve read this book for the first time around 2009. It is called “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow. Back then at the age of 18, it had a huge impact on me. Lessons I’ve learned from that book back then, I applied immediately into my life and have benefited from it since.

This year as part of my reading list I’ve read it again.

Randy Pausch was a Professor at Carnegie Mellon for Computer Science. In his mid-forties, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer leaving a wife and three kids. But Randy Pausch was no ordinary man. While he was fighting for his life and making sure he spends as much time as possible with his family, he was asked to give his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon. In this lecture, he summarized his life lessons on how to achieve your childhood dreams. The book “The Last Lecture” not only goes through his lecture but also through his thought process and emotions at that time.

This book is truly for everyone. We are all on the same journey, just on different paths. This book will give you a new perspective on your life and the time you still have left.

My major lessons

The following major lessons are based on quotes from the book, which had an impact on me. This does not mean that you’ll find more than these five lessons when you read it by yourself.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt with, just how we play the hand.

In many cases, we can not change the circumstances in certain situations we are stuck. Even though they are probably not as harsh as in Mr. Pausch’s case, still, in order to move forward, we need to control our hands and play the cards to our benefit. It is the only thing we can control. Complaining about it, will just cost us unnecessary energy and not help us in any way. Therefore the only thing left to do is to move on and make the best of it.

When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.

It is part of our nature, as humans, to not be perfect all the time. At some point in our life, we will screw up in some way. But it is essential for our peers, friends, and family to let us know when we screw up. It can be through constructive criticism, demanding amends, or just demanding more of us. With that kind of gesture, they show us that they care.

Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.

A rejection on your way to achieving your childhood or adulthood dreams doesn’t mean rejection for life. It is just an invitation for trying it again. As Mr. Pausch describes it in his book, the brick walls are not to keep you away just everyone else who simply does not want to get past it badly enough. It doesn’t matter what it is or who it is which stands in your way as a brick wall, as long as you keep showing them how badly you want it, you will get past it.

Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

Randy Pausch also describes that time must be managed, like money. Time is something we are all gifted with at the time we are born and only decreases from that moment forward. Not knowing when our lives could end should urge us to think of it as the greatest treasure we possess but can not hold onto it.

Recently, I even read in a German paper that in Germany the average man only gets ~78 years old while the average woman only gets ~83 years old, I imagine that the rest of the world has similar numbers. That means for me, in a good scenario at least getting until 78 years old, I have 48 years left. Honestly, I do not think that this is much. Therefore the only thing I can do is to manage my time to my own benefit and to live it on my own terms with those people that matter to me the most.

Live every day as they were already counted.

You are only as good as your word.

Your peers, friends, and family value you, this is out of the question, but actions are louder than words. Still, in some situations, your word is all they have. If you do not keep it, your value to them will decrease. It will then take hard work and a lot of time to build it up again. Your integrity and trustworthiness depend on your actions that correlate with your words.

Final words

This book is an emotional roller coaster. It is heartwarming, funny, and heartbreaking in a very short time. It has 206 pages and can be read within two days. It also has more than the five lessons I’ve listed above. What impressed me the most, is that even though he knew that his days could be very soon counted, he made the best of it. Not a lot of people have the strength to do so in such a situation and I admire that. Trying to make the best of every day is a goal worth aiming for until our last heartbeat.

Shoutout to fellow writers

As much I’ve learned from this book, also Jim Nightingale reminds us in his article “Why it’s so important to never stop learning” to keep reading and interacting with other people to improve and evolve. Only that way we will be able to enjoy every day a little bit more than the day before.

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